First Things First
by DinoDina
Summary: It's the very first day of the rest of their lives: Jack and Ianto get breakfast. CoE fix-it. Janto. Oneshot.


**Written for avaantares's COE10 on Tumblr for the prompts: green / memory/eternity/hope / morning**

There wasn't much room in Jack's bunker. Not for two people, at least. Ianto supposed that hadn't been a problem before now, as Jack hadn't usually had long-lasting relationships with his coworkers.

It was comfortable enough for one person, but once it was dark and crowded, Ianto always felt cramped. He didn't complain, however; he liked sleeping with Jack, both in a literal and figurative sense, no matter how odd it felt to squeeze into the small camp bed if they chose to spend the night at the Hub.

He turned over in bed, trying to get a look at his watch, which he knew had fallen to the floor sometime last night.

Jack shifted next to him. "Up already?"

Ianto half-shrugged. "Maybe, depending on the time. Did I wake you?"

"Not really, I was just waking up myself." Jack moved to let him lean off the bed and finally grab the errant watch. "What time is it?"

"Half-past eight." Ianto groaned. He hadn't expected to sleep so late, but now what he was faced with the prospect of getting up, all he wanted to do was turn around and cuddle with Jack until he fell back asleep.

"Time to get up, then," Jack said. He kissed Ianto behind the ear. "Let me up, I'll deal with the Hub. You can sleep in."

Ianto scoffed. "Like hell I'm doing that. I'm not going to mess up my sleep schedule."

"You don't have a sleep schedule."

"Fair enough." Ianto allowed himself another few minutes with the blanket—and Jack's warm embrace. "Shower, then?"

"Shower," Jack agreed.

And unlike the bed, Jack's shower was modern and large enough for two, which made for an efficient and enjoyable start to the day.

"Wear that one," Jack said later, after they got out of the shower, pointing at the tie in Ianto's left hand.

Ianto hummed in agreement and began to tie it. "How's the Rift looking?"

Jack checked the small Rift alert detector in his room. "Quiet, but volatile."

Ianto snorted. "Well, that's helpful."

The Rift wasn't _that_ unpredictable usually, but it seemed to be one of those days. Ianto smoother the last crease from his suit. "Ready?"

Jack motioned to the ladder. "After you."

"You just want to look at my arse."

But despite Jack's unapologetic shrug, Ianto went up the ladder first and emerged in Jack's office, getting a closer look at the early-morning Hub.

It wasn't that early anymore, and Ianto would have worried about Tosh, because she always came in by eight, but remembered that it was her half-day off. No one knew the Rift quite as well as she did, though, so Ianto believed that she would arrive quickly in the event of an emergency.

"Time for breakfast?" Jack asked.

Ianto nodded. "Yeah, we're a bit late already. Myfanwy must be famished."

"I… I meant us."

"Do you want to have an angry pteranodon on your hands?" Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Or an angry Weevil?—Janet's not eaten yet, either."

Jack sighed, following Ianto out of the office. "We feel the pets, then we're feeling ourselves!"

"Grab a biscuit if you're hungry! This'll only take half an hour."

And true to Ianto's word, thirty minutes later, they were back in the main Hub, watching a fed and satisfied Myfanwy fly around near the tall ceiling.

"Think it'll be cloudy enough to let her out tonight?" Ianto asked. "It's been such a nice summer, there's been too much visibility, she's been so cooped up. Look at her, she's completely restless."

"Might be, yeah," Jack agreed. "But come on: breakfast. I'll have a note on her desk if Gwen shows up while we're out."

With the note written and their coats taken from Jack's office, they were on their way tout on the invisible lift, soon emerging in the sunny summer Plass.

"Over there?" Jack suggested, pointing. "We can get something for Gwen, too, when we're done."

Ianto nodded, and they crossed the Plass to the café Jack had pointed out.

.oOo.

The cafe hadn't been affected by the blast. The queue outside was as long as it always was; no one was talking about the crater right behind them. It was business as usual, and by Cardiff standards that was true: the aliens were gone and the Earth kept spinning.

Their last morning together at the cafe had been the last before the world had gone to shit. Ianto hoped it wasn't going to happen again.

Between the explosion clean-up, the cover-up of the 456, meeting Jack's family and Jack meeting his, the past few days had been almost too much to handle. That was without thinking of his first visit to London since Canary Wharf.

Maybe it was wise for Ianto to stay clear of the city. It was bad luck. Cybermen, alien viruses... Cardiff was far safer.

It was so safe that a fight had broken out at the front of the queue. It wasn't Ianto's business but he craned his neck for a better look.

"Don't get involved," Jack said.

Ianto threw him a grumpy look. For all that he'd been so busy in the aftermath of the 456's invasion, he'd been doing so much less than he should have been. Jack's almost vice-like grip on his hand reminded him of the week's terror—Jack was still scared.

"I'm not," Ianto said. "But I'm also not going to disappear."

He couldn't promise anything. The near miss he'd just had wasn't any different from his other near misses. Weevils, explosives, blowfish, Jack's exes, cannibals; if, over breakfast, Ianto wanted to list the times he could have died, he'd never leave the cafe.

The crater where the Hub used to be, however, left a lot to the imagination. Even though Cardiff had forgotten, encouraged to do so through a mix of retcon and years of practice, it was personal for Torchwood. What was left of it, anyway.

Jack was grieving, Gwen was confused, and Ianto wasn't surprised. It had only been a matter of time.

"Let's get a few to take to Gwen and Rhys later," Jack said. He was still holding Ianto's hand, but most of his focus was on the list of the day's pastries. "What do you think they'll like?"

Owen had liked to joke that Rhys would eat any pastry that crossed his path. Ianto knew better. "I think he likes danishes. And Gwen likes the chocolate ones."

"Good idea. And you?"

"Surprise me." Ianto gave Jack a teasing smile—Jack's surprises usually involved nudity—and focused on the coffee options.

The good coffee machine had been in the Hub. Ianto didn't drink much coffee when he wasn't working, but it had been too long. He wanted something classic, something that could prepare him for a day of working without the opportunity to make more.

They settled at a table by the window. In hindsight, that might not have been the best choice: the sun shone over the Plass and it was possible to almost feel the fresh breeze off the bay even though the window, but the crater, all that was left of the Hub, was glaringly obvious.

They were working with UNIT to clean the debris. The blast had been contained to the main Hub and tourist office, and although the loss had been large, the lower levels—including the archives, the resident aliens, and the morgue—were still there.

They were staying at Jack's flat, now, operating out of it to deal with Flat Holm and the occasional weevil. It had been quiet since the 456; it was quite nice of the weevils to give Torchwood the time off to regroup. Ianto thought it would have been quiet for him anyway, since Jack wasn't letting him out of his sight. It was sweet, in a way, if Ianto enjoyed mollycoddling. He didn't.

Outside, Cardiff was going back to normal. Whatever normal was. Ianto had tried it—it was safe and boring and not at all for him.

Pastries and pteranodons were for him; weevils and retcon, the danger and the satisfaction of saving the world. For some, the morning heralded a work day and the knowledge that living in Cardiff meant ignoring aliens. For Ianto, the morning meant that he was still alive, despite all odds. He could sit in the cafe with Jack and eat all the pastries he wanted.

**CoE didn't happen, Ianto's alive, and thanks for reading!**


End file.
